Shio the Shiba

I'm truly amazed every day by our Shiba community and our neighborhood. Last week, I was able to witness the power of their connectivity first hand.
On Wednesday evening, during dinner with a Shiba friend she told that Lili, a Shiba in our neighborhood, had been missing since Tuesday. A few hours after I returned home, I started receiving multiple emails, Facebook notifications and tweets about Lili. Our local blog also announced Lili's disappearance and multiple "Missing dog" flyers went up.

Thursday morning came and Shio, Emi and I got ready to go out. Instead of our usual routine, I decided that we would go on a mission to find Lili. It is not always that a Shiba in our area goes missing and I was determined to partake in the search for her safe return! We walked for hours around the neighborhood and asked many neighbors about Lili. I would point to Shio and say, "She looks like him, only more petite. Please help us." Most of them would respond and say that they had already seen Lili's flyers. Dogwalkers who have clients in our neighborhood were all already notified via their network through text messages. Our friend on Twitter messaged us to tell us that he saw Lili a few hours before so we headed to the his sighting area. It was a hustling and bustling area with a lot of traffic, office buildings and students. We walked for a few blocks but it became to overwhelming for Emi, who is still timid, and it was difficult to navigate with two dogs. I turned around and started heading home when I was stopped by a couple who rushed over to me. They were Lili's owners and were outside frantically searching for her. It made my heart break to see how much they missed her but I was happy to see that they were so committed to finding her. I took our dogs home and dropped them off and went back out on foot to look some more by myself. I had no luck and finally give up.

When I returned home after a long day, I started getting emails and tweets to announce that Lili had been found! We all rejoiced and did a little happy dance. The best part? The owners sent an email to me to express their heartfelt thanks. That brought tears to my eyes.

At the end of the day, we are only as good as our communities and we need to assist each other when the occasion calls for a helping hand. I'm so proud to be a part of ours.